Overview

This volume is part of a sub-series of volumes of the Foreign Relations series that documents the foreign policy of the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower. It is a supplement to the 1983 publication of Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Volume IV, American Republics. Volume IV covered both multilateral relations as well as bilateral relations for 20 American Republics, including Guatemala. The historian who collected and prepared the volume knew that the compilation on Guatemala as published was incomplete and flawed. The role of the Central Intelligence Agency in the ouster of Guatemala's elected president, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, was not documented in the volume.

This volume fills in many details about the role of the United States in Guatemala in the early 1950s. The CIA operation in Guatemala is an important instance of the use of covert action to implement U.S. foreign policy, and this volume provides a detailed account of that action. Because the focus of this volume is on a covert program, the documents published in the 1952–1954 American Republics volume are not reprinted here, but footnotes and editorial notes refer back to the more significant overt aspects covered in the volume published in 1983. The two volumes complement each other and should be read together for a full and comprehensive account.